COCAINE DEALER NOT ENTITLED TO SYMPATHY

Winnipegger Kevin Hiebert went on the lam a month ago from the
confines of a dreary Greek prison after serving several years of his
life sentence for cocaine trafficking. On Wednesday, reports said he
planned to turn himself in, but only if his return to Canada was
guaranteed. When Hiebert's newly found "freedom" was initially
reported there were those who applauded his moxie while others
condemned the federal government -- both the law-and-order
Conservatives and the more relaxed Liberals -- for sitting on their
hands, not having done anything to extricate this Canadian from his
Greek circumstance.

There were also a few conspiracy theorists. They wove accusations of
corruption pointing to alleged demands for cash from Greek officials
that went unpaid, accounting for the former West Kildonan resident's
jam.

His prison stay is long by Canadian standards, but is more likely
about the social implications of his crime than conspiracy.

Hiebert was a mule, a trafficker, a smuggler of two kilos' worth of
South American cocaine.

Cocaine means fast money that destroys families (Hiebert's has
disintegrated since his capture) and neighbourhoods. It is a major
contributing factor to global social disorder characterized by
kidnappings, beatings, amputations and murders. There is not enough
room on this page to list Winnipeg people who have suffered from
cocaine-based torment and grief.

But this isn't about Winnipeg. It's about Greece and it has all the
expected problems with cocaine and more. Recent research sponsored by
England's University of Bath and the Leuven Institute for Criminology
in Belgium says that evidence gathered since the early 1990s has
confirmed Greece as a major entry point for cocaine en route to the
European Union. That cocaine originates with South American cartels
whose success depends on viciousness.

The New York Times has reported that cocaine originating in Columbia
is responsible for "by far the biggest humanitarian catastrophe of the
Western Hemisphere." The ongoing distress has meant the displacement
of two million people and too many killings to count with some
indigenous tribes facing extinction. According to Jan Egeland, the
former United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs,
the cocaine industry has left Columbia's displaced children without
hope and ripe for the picking by guerrilla groups, paramilitary forces
and drug gangs.

The lucrative drug trade has lured multinational crime groups into
Greece while west-African nations have become transit hubs for cocaine
en route to the Mediterranean paradise for later distribution.

Hiebert was arrested in 1999 at a time when the Athens News Agency
reported that the "Greek police narcotics squad has repeatedly dealt
with Nigerian drug trafficking rings that smuggle large quantities of
heroin and (South American) cocaine into the country..."

At the same time, the RCMP said Hiebert and his associates, arrested
in Amsterdam, were likely parts of an international smuggling gang
"recruited on behalf of a Nigerian drug-trafficking ring operating out
of Greece."

Some claim that Hiebert's arrest marked his debut into the criminal
world. Maybe, but it was into a world of international gangsters and a
multibillion-dollar industry. Jumping into that kind of maelstrom
comes with a heavy in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound price.

The snake's head is impotent without players like Hiebert, and given
the unique Greek situation and the crime's international scope it is
clear that his iron-fisted sentence was based on deterrence and
denunciation. It wasn't pot for personal use. He was a foreigner
trying to profit quickly in an illicit business linked to organized
crime and terror that leaves stains of greed and wickedness wherever
it travels.

As for Hiebert's repatriation demands, our government is not on call
to fish every Canadian out of the tough jail conditions of foreign
lands. Glossy federal pamphlets are published for those considering
crime abroad that warn of dire consequences if caught and state that
the government "cannot interfere in the judicial affairs of another
country." There is a prisoner transfer treaty with Greece but it's not
guaranteed and can only be activated if both governments agree to it.

Canadian justice is not known for considering the social consequence
of crime. Its reputation is more about forgiveness and generosity.
While that culture of largesse may have influenced Hiebert's
supporters, it doesn't negate the fact that legitimate justice can
mean different things in different parts of the world.

When he's caught, nobody should expect Greek authorities to rush to
the typically Canadian perspective.